During Trump’s first term, the National Park Service was an area of malign neglect, without a confirmed director for all four years. For most of Trump 1.0, the national parks were ignored, but no longer.
The worst park policy adopted during Trump’s first term affected the vast park preserve lands in Alaska, some 70-million acres surrounding national parks such as Denali – parks in which hunting is not permitted but is allowed in the adjacent preserves. President Trump ordered an end to all federal rules protecting wildlife in the preserves so that inhumane and unsporting practices such as shooting bear cubs and wolf cubs in their dens, chasing down wildlife on motorized vehicles, and using bait to attract bears would be permitted in deference to “anything-goes” Alaskan state game rules.
To the surprise and disappointment of many, the Biden administration left this rollback in place, except for bear baiting. Even then, the rationale for banning this practice was public safety (the danger of habituating bears to human food) rather than wildlife protection. Nonetheless, Trump 2.0 has brought back legalized bear baiting.
But the rollbacks of park wildlife protections do not stop there. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has ordered the removal of all restrictions on hunting in national parks that allow hunting. As a result, restrictions on hunting with dogs, bans on night vision and thermal optics while hunting, and rules governing gut piles and other carcass disposal on park lands are all being repealed.
Burgum’s order discourages any restrictions on lead-based ammunition or fishing tackle. This, even though more than 130 park wildlife species are exposed to or killed by ingesting lead or prey contaminated with lead. Lead is a leading threat to birdlife, especially bald eagles, hawks, and other raptors, as well as other birds from loons to condors.
On another front, Sec. Burgum has authorized mining on Park Service land, allowing an Australian Company to pursue extraction of rare earth minerals from Mojave National Preserve. This precedent-setting move opens more than 1,000 sites in mainly Western national parks to commercial mining operations.
Nationally, the national park system is facing impacts from climate change. One growing concern is that due to shrinking “habitat connectivity,” it is more difficult for wildlife to relocate when habitats are disrupted by wildfire or other changes. Nonetheless, national parks may no longer study climate impacts, and even interpretive displays mentioning climate change have been censored.
Another human-caused impact is park overcrowding. As many parks are experiencing record-breaking crowds, Burgum’s office is ordering parks to abandon reservation or timed-entry systems, leaving them without tools to protect popular park areas from being loved to death.
At the same time, the Trump administration is moving to relax air pollution standards for national parks. Dirty air affects wildlife as well as humans. The ability to study these adverse effects is diminished because the ranks of scientists at the National Park Service and related environmental agencies have been dramatically cut.
Of all the rollbacks enacted over the past several months, it is hard to find a single action which benefits wildlife. This suspension of protections takes place across the backdrop of a startling decline in wildlife populations, even within the supposed sanctuaries that national parks are supposed to provide.
Again, nearly mid-way through Trump’s second term, there is no Park Service Director – and no one to stand up for parks. All major decisions affecting national parks are being made at Interior headquarters.
Unfortunately, Doug Burgum is turning out to be the worst Interior Secretary in history, especially when it comes to protecting wildlife. Our national parks are often called America’s best idea, but that idea is rapidly dimming as the current custodians are utterly unclear on the concept.
Jeff Ruch is the former Executive Director and Pacific Director of PEER. He now serves as Senior Counsel.